by Esme Devlin
It wasn’t a nightmare.
“I thought you might be hungry. I brought you some stew,” she says, her voice gentle.
I sit up in bed, backing away and looking at her like she’s offering to feed me my own left arm.
“It’s alright, honey. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.”
Why don’t I believe her?
“What is this?” I say, looking around the room and trying to make it sound like I’m demanding an answer. I know it’s a basement but I want to know exactly what the fuck I’m doing in it.
Alice puts the bowl down on what looks like a workbench and takes a seat on a stool in front of me. Her eyes are doing that thing again, that simple warm look that conveys she understands.
She doesn’t understand.
How the fuck could she understand?
“There’s a lot to explain, dear. Shaun told me about the trouble you were in,” she says.
“Shaun?”
Suddenly the pieces all start clicking together. It’s like someone has turned a tap on, a slow trickle at first and then a whoosh.
I never questioned how Shaun always knew my father was away on business. That day in the car when he was telling me about his grandparents, that was Alice and Jim. And how was he getting into my house? Was she letting him in?
“When I told you I had grand-bairns who kept me up all night, well, I was mostly talking about that little shit. But you’re safe now,” she says.
Funny because that’s exactly the opposite of how I feel.
“You need to let me go,” I tell her. “This is insane. I don’t know what he’s told you but it’s just not true. There is no trouble. I wasn’t in any trouble until I woke up chained to a fucking wall!” I can feel myself losing it. I shouldn’t swear at her. I should be nice to her and try to appeal to her softer nature. But this is madness. I can’t help myself.
“I can’t let you go,” she says, getting up from the chair. “Shaun will be home soon. I’m sure he’ll explain what’s happening.”
“I don’t want to hear it from him. I want to hear it from you. Right now,” I demand.
She sighs and looks at me for a moment. There is sympathy in her eyes, which instantly worries me because it signals she knows this is wrong. She knows this is wrong and yet she’s doing it, anyway.
Why? Because Shaun asked her too? Does everyone in his life blindly follow his every whim?
She clears her throat and sits back down on the stool. “Your father is forcing you to marry… Liam McGuiness.”
Huh. Well, I suspected the conversation I had with Shaun yesterday wouldn’t be the end of it, but this? I couldn’t ever have dreamed he would go to these lengths.
“My father can’t physically force me to do anything,” I tell her. I’m not going to explain to her that while my father has his own reasons, I had my own agenda too. I wouldn’t have gone through with it. He’d have got his shares, Shaun wouldn’t be able to retaliate or break my heart or whatever the hell he was trying to do, and I could finish high school in one piece.
At least, that was my logic at the time.
“Oh, you’re sure about that? Your father owns you. He puts the roof over your head and the clothes on your back. You ought to wisen up quick, Lacey, and start seeing that this is a man’s world, and if you’re going to survive in it, you at least have to acknowledge that we don’t get choices.”
“It was my choice to go through with it, though,” I tell her.
She shakes her head at me. “Don’t talk wet — I didn’t come down in the last shower. I knew it was my Shaun you were talking about yesterday and not that… Liam.”
She practically winces when she says his name. I thought I’d imagined it the first time but this time it was unmistakable. Does the rivalry really run that deep that a grown woman — a grandmother — would hate him so much?
But I store that question away for later, there’s something else bothering me more.
“So that’s why you said what you did yesterday? You were talking like I should give him a chance, but you would say that, considering he’s your golden boy who can do no wrong,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my tongue. Right now, it’s the only weapon I have.
She laughs and looks up at the ceiling, rolling her eyes. “I can assure you he’s no golden boy. That laddie came out of his mother with the sole intention of causing trouble. I said those things yesterday because I know him, and I can tell when he’s lying. And I don’t think he’s lying about you.”
“Let’s say for the sake of argument, he’s not lying. What would you have me do? You don’t know half of the things he’s done to me. When I first met him, he hated me. Even now… you, my friend, his friend, all say he likes me. But his actions don’t say that. You don’t steal someone from their bed and chain them to a wall. That’s not normal,” I say.
It’s not normal.
In fact, it’s probably one of the most fucked up things you can do to a person. If this is how he treats me when he ‘likes’ me, what the hell is he capable of doing to someone who he despises?
He’d destroy them, that’s what.
But Alice just laughs, like he’s nothing more than a lovable little rogue. It’s mildly disturbing. “No one ever said Shaun was normal. He acts first and thinks about it second, if he ever thinks about it at all. Just like my Jim. As for what I’d do? I’d listen to him.”
“I don’t believe half of what he says,” I tell her with a shrug.
“Then watch him closer,” she says as she gets up from the chair and straightens her skirt. “Listen to what he does instead of what he says. You told him your dad was forcing you to marry for money, and in his mind he’s removing that problem for you. He’s fixing it. He doesn’t share the same morals as most folks. Now, eat your stew and get some rest — Christ knows you’ll need it if you’re going to fight him.”
She puts the bowl down in front of me and I pick up the spoon, confused by her words.
“Fight him? I thought you said I should listen to him?”
She shrugs while she walks back up the stairs and raises her arm in the air, as if I’m being naïve and she’s dismissing me.
“More than one way to listen, pet. Listen with your ears, your eyes, your fists, your heart. It’s all the same thing, really.”
Time stretches out until every minute feels like an hour. Alice left the light on, probably so I could eat, but since she’s not come back to switch it off, and I don’t know when she will, I take full advantage of it. I think I’ve looked at almost everything there is to see in the room, which is about what you’d expect for a basement turned prison.
She said Shaun would be back soon. Maybe she was lying, because this doesn’t feel like soon. Or then again, maybe it’s just in my head and the reality is that not much time has passed at all. It’s hard to tell when you don’t have a frame of reference and you have nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company.
I did start trying to process things. Her words struck a cord with me. She paints such romantic pictures of love and what it is. She seems to think fucking and fighting and love and hate are all interchangeable. Half of me wonders if it really is that good, while the other half is aghast at what could have happened to her to make her think this way?
Why would you want to feel that much emotion for someone? How can that possibly be enjoyable or something worth doing? It’s not something I’ve ever experienced permanently and I’m not sure I’d ever want to.
I had a taste of it with Shaun. He’s the only person who’s ever brought multiple feelings to the surface all at once and it’s enough to make you dizzy. He gives me highs like I’ve never felt before, and it was only yesterday I admitted I was scared of never feeling those highs again.
But it’s everything else.
It’s never just highs with Shaun. It’s the ups and downs. It’s like being on a rollercoaster at a fairground, one with the big loops. You’re waiting in line excited but also nervous, you get
on anyway because your friend tells you it will be worth it. Then you’re strapped in, you’re going faster than you expected, not knowing which way up you are, or where you’re going. Half of you enjoying yourself but the other half thinking this train could come off the tracks at any minute and that would be it.
The end.
Choosing Shaun, for real, would be like getting on that rollercoaster.
The harness would be down and there would only be two ways out. There would be no switching seats or slowing down. We’d either have the ride of our lives, or we’d not get out in one piece.
I feel my resolve softening towards him so I stop thinking about it.
Instead I start a game in my head where I close my eyes, and the first thing I see, I have to guess whether it’s priced lower or higher than the last thing I saw. I don’t know the answers of course, so naturally I win more than I lose. But I’m going through items quite quickly so I take my time and start evaluating each one like I’m on a fucking game-show. “Well, you see, Judy, I happen to know this is not just your standard screwdriver. This is a gold plated original done in the art déco style and it’s absolutely a fine example.”
That’s what I tell Judy, my opponent, in my head.
I’m losing the fucking plot.
And I kinda need to pee.
A little while later, I hear keys in the lock and footsteps on the stairs. I hope she has a key for this foot clamp because if not I will piss this bed, and I’ll laugh when she has to change it.
That would serve her nicely for not letting me go when I told her to.
But it’s not Alice.
He doesn’t say anything, he just looks at me. His expression gives nothing away either. Not that he’s sorry or that he’s pleased with himself, not that he hates me or he likes me.
Just a blank look.
A stare.
The silence stretches out before us and I try to think of something to say, but where would I even start? How would I begin to untangle the knots in my brain and in my heart?
So instead, I start at the place where it’s easiest.
“I need to pee,” I tell him, watching his face closely. I think he’s been in a daze, because his face changes like he’s only just now seeing me for the first time.
He nods and comes closer to me, bending down beside the bed. I shift away from him on instinct, and he glances at me while he peels back the blankets covering my leg. He holds my foot up and takes a key out of his pocket, unlocking it and letting the clamp fall to the floor.
“Was that really necessary?” I ask, standing up on shaky legs and trying to stretch.
He catches my arm and holds me steady for a second while I get used to using my legs again. “Aye, it was. I had to make sure you didn’t start walking around in the dark all dazed and hurt yourself.”
Sure it was.
“You had to make sure I didn’t escape, more like,” I say, spitting the words at him and taking my arm back.
I can stand up just fine by myself.
“Believe me, darlin, there’s not a chance you’d be getting through that door up there. Tried it myself many times.”
“Whatever. Where’s the toilet?” I step off the mat thing I’ve been lying on and stumble slightly, much to my own annoyance. My legs feel like jelly and I really wish they didn’t. He’s on me in a second, scooping me up and heading towards the stairs with me. “Put me down you big… idiot.”
He just laughs at me, and that serves only to piss me off even more because this is no time for laughing. “Nope.”
He climbs the basement stairs easily and then backs into the door to open it, and we’re in his hallway. I look around and locate the front door behind me.
My exit.
I don’t know where he lives, it could be on a main road or it could be out in the middle of nowhere. I’ll need to plan for my escape meticulously.
Car keys.
Is there a garage?
If there is a window, then I can look out and see if there’s a road… neighbors… someone who can help.
Then maybe I wouldn’t need a car.
My thoughts go on like this — racing at 100mph — until I notice he’s not taking me to the toilet, we’re going up the stairs again.
We round the corner on the landing and he backs into another door. His bedroom.
“I need the toilet!” I tell him, and he puts me down in the middle of the room.
“Right behind you, princess,” he says. “I’ll be waiting right here.”
Chapter 4
SHAUN
I sit on the bed while I wait for her. I hear the toilet flushing and the taps running, but she doesn’t come out.
She’s been in there a good ten minutes and I wonder what the fuck she is up to. It’s almost dinnertime and my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.
I get up and knock on the door.
No response.
“Lacey?” I shout.
There’s a few moments of silence where I don’t hear anything at all, so I knock again, harder this time.
“Fuck off!”
And then the shower starts running.
I go back and sit on the bed.
I thought she’d fight me and I’d prepared myself for that. I thought she’d hate me, accuse me of all sorts. That didn’t worry me — I’m good at defending myself. What I hadn’t expected was indifference.
She’s not said anything to me. Not anything real, anyway. I was waiting for her to abuse me and she didn’t. Now I feel like I’m going to have to explain myself, and I don’t like doing that. It’s much easier to defend than it is to explain.
I sit and wait for ages, until I realize that no normal situation calls for a 45 minute shower.
I bang on the door again, and this time I don’t hear anything. Just running water. Another bang. Another silence.
Fuck this.
I take a step back from the door and ram it with my shoulder, breaking the lock. I come in with my back to the shower so she doesn’t hit the roof over me seeing her in the scud.
“Lacey?”
She’s either ignoring me or she’s dead. I turn around. People shouldn’t ignore people if they don’t want to be seen naked.
The glass door is open, and she’s curled up in a little ball on the floor under the shower. The water lands on her head, turning her bright hair dark. It runs over her face and drips off her nose, but she doesn’t look like she cares.
She doesn’t look at anything.
Her eyes are open but they’re glassed over, like she’s staring at some place far away.
I don’t fucking like it.
It’s only when I reach in and turn the shower off that she looks up at me.
She watches me for a moment, blinking a few times and then she swallows. “Why did you do it?”
I sigh, grabbing a towel. This isn’t the time or the place, and even if it was, I don’t know how to explain it.
I hold the towel out for her in the shower, waiting for her to take it so I can turn around and give her privacy, but she just glances at it, and then looks back at me.
She stands up. Naked as the day she was born and with a look in her eye that says she doesn’t give a single solitary fuck about that fact.
I look her up and down, I can’t help it, but it doesn’t matter how perfect her body is, her eyes are where I stop.
“Why?” she says again, firmer this time.
I shrug at her. “Because I wanted to.”
She searches my face, what she’s looking for I do not know, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. I hold the towel out again and this time, she accepts it.
“You can’t just take things because you decide you want them, Shaun. The world doesn’t work like that,” she says, shaking her head.
“Taking what I want has always worked out well enough for me,” I tell her. “And you seem to know a lot about the way the world works for someone with absolutely no idea how much it’s fucking her up the arse.”
>
She wraps the towel around her and walks past me, shouldering me on the way. I follow her through to my bedroom and watch her as she looks around, not quite sure where to go.
There’s an urge inside me to keep pushing her. Not because I want to hurt her, but because she needs to fight.
Whether she hates me or not, she needs to feel something. She needs to feel angry about what they’re doing to her, pulling and pushing and forcing her into things.
If she ends up being angry at me for doing the same thing, then I’ll deal with that. I’ll win her back. But I can’t win when she’s so fucking unfazed by all of it.
“Do you even realize that’s what they’re doing? Or are you too stupid to work it out? Do you want me to explain it to you, really fucking slowly, so you can understand?” My tone is patronizing as fuck and I watch her body tense.
There’s my girl.
Finally, some fucking emotion.
She turns around to face me. “I know what they’re doing. I know exactly what they’re doing and I know it’s not all that different from what you’re doing right now.”
I flash her a smile. “Except, I’m doing it much better.”
I start casually walking towards her and she backs away from me until her legs are up against the foot of my bed and she has nowhere else to go.
“You’re doing it like a crazy person,” she says, watching me warily.
“It’s what you want though, isn’t it? You like it when you don’t have to make the big decisions. You like it when the choice gets removed from you. Or is it only okay when Daddy is the one who takes the choices away?”
“Liam told me that marrying him meant you’d have to stay away. You couldn’t touch me and you couldn’t hurt me. It didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time and now I’m thinking that it was probably a good one,” she says, looking at a spot low on the ground behind me.
I take her chin in my hands and force her head up. “You really do think I’m the bad guy, don’t you?” I say with a laugh. “And to think, I tried so hard to be on my best behavior for you.”
“It’s not about you being the bad guy. It was, at first. But then, if I’m honest, that stopped bothering me so much. It’s not that you’re the bad guy, Shaun, it’s that you make me weak.”